Sex abuse survivors dispute Southern Baptist leadership and say federal investigation is ongoing

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe status of a federal investigation into a leading Southern Baptist agency’s handling of sexual abuse is unclear.But this much is clear — survivors of abuse and their advocates remain deeply skeptical of leaders’ intentions to address the scandal in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Recent events have deepened that distrust.
After the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee said Wednesday that the committee was no longer under federal investigation over its handling of sexual abuse in the church, several survivors and advocates say they’ve learned directly from Department of Justice officials that no part of the investigation has finished.
Further clouding the issue was an ambiguous phrase from the denomination’s official news service.
“Legal counsel for the SBC has since confirmed that the investigation into the SBC as a whole remains open and ongoing,” said an article Thursday in Baptist Press.
While it was long known that other SBC entities were also under investigation, including seminaries and mission agencies, the phrase “as a whole” appeared to advocates to include the Executive Committee and to represent a backtracking from the earlier statement.
Executive Committee spokesman Jon Wilke said Thursday that the Baptist Press article provided “added clarification” but did not represent a change in the committee’s previous statement.
The entity in the best po …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]